


Home Again

by Anonymous



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Brock Rumlow is a dick, Brock Rumlow still being a massive asshole even after a building falls on him, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Manipulation, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Psychological Horror, Revictimization, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-13 22:15:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Before the events of Civil War, Rumlow visits Bucky at his sad apartment in Bucharest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely based on [this prompt](https://hydratrashmeme.dreamwidth.org/2271.html?replyto=5062623). Some of the events mentioned are based on the Captain America: Civil War Prelude Infinite Comic (which can be viewed [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brp_5iaskmc) on Youtube). It can be read as slightly AU in the sense that Rumlow is presumably less physically incapacitated and in a better mental state than he was in canon. 
> 
> Also, this story is not nice at all and has no redeeming qualities. Please heed the warnings.

There is no point trying to sneak up on the Winter Soldier, even if he’s not technically the Winter Soldier anymore, so Rumlow just knocks on the front door. He keeps one hand on the pistol he has holstered at his side, barely hidden under his jacket, but it’s more of a talisman than anything else. Rumlow isn’t dumb enough to think he stands a chance if the man inside this apartment actually wants to fight him.

But there are no gunshots, no killing blows that come out of nowhere. Instead, Rumlow just waits for a few moments next to the stairwell in the shitty building, and his surroundings smell faintly of someone cooking dinner in another apartment, and finally from behind the door someone says: “Who is it.”

The voice is familiar, and flat, but there’s a hint of uncertainty in it, and the idea of the soldier asking a question like that with _uncertainty_ is way funnier than it should be. It has only recently stopped hurting his face bad to smile, so Rumlow just lets it happen. “You know who the fuck it is,” he says to the door.

Silence, several more seconds of silence broken only by someone on another floor watching television too loud, and then the door to the apartment opens inwards.

The man standing inside the door is not holding a gun, which is a surprise—he is, in fact, not holding a weapon at all. He takes Rumlow in with a definite flicker on his face—either reacting to Rumlow’s new-and-definitely-not-improved appearance, or just to seeing him after all this time; Rumlow does’t know and doesn’t much care which.

“How did you find me,” he says finally.

“We used to work together, remember. I know your tricks.” Rumlow steps forward, taking the chance that the other man will move back and give him room to get inside. It works: the man steps back, and then says: “Does anyone else know—”

“Does HYDRA know, you mean?” Rumlow stops long enough to kick the door closed behind him, gives the man another tight smile as he steps past him. “No fucking clue! Don’t work for them no more.”

He gives him a look that says _then why are you here_ , but Rumlow decides to ignore it for now. There’s a table past the end of the narrow entranceway to the apartment, and he drops the duffel bag he’d been carrying on the floor next to it. Christ, what a shitty place. He’d half expected to find the soldier sleeping under a bridge somewhere, and this is a step above that, but only barely.

The other man hasn’t moved, is still standing behind him like he is waiting for an answer. Rumlow turns back to him, still smiling, and says: “I’m here because you’re gonna help me out.”

The man actually _snorts_ , then lets out a genuine—if miserable—laugh. “I’m not a part of that any more. I don’t—”

“Stop talking,” Rumlow says.

He stops. Then he looks miserable about the fact that he's not talking, but continues not to talk. For someone who is several inches taller than Rumlow and 60 pounds heavier and part metal, for someone who _doesn’t_ look like he just lost a battle with a building—jesus, he is good at making himself look fucking tiny.

“I know you don’t work for them,” Rumlow continnues. “I know that’s not what you do now. You’re still gonna help me out, and you’re gonna stop whining about it.”

He just glares at him, tension in his jaw and his body. He is wearing about eighteen layers of clothing even though it’s warm in this place, and Rumlow can still see him tense up visibly through it all.

“Little birdie back in the States told me you’re not killing people anymore,” Rumlow says. “Said you left a bunch of HYDRA goons alive back in DC, even. Very noble. Made you much easier to find, but still.”

His mouth moves slightly like he’s going to talk, but he only licks his lips nervously and doesn’t say a thing.

Rumlow steps past the duffel and the table.The little kitchen area beyond it is tiny and not particularly interesting, but Rumlow makes a big show of looking around anyway, just for the hell of it. “So what’re you calling yourself these days?” he says.

“It doesn’t matter what I tell you I call myself,” he says from behind him, and actually sounds sad about it.

Rumlow shrugs. He picks up a plate that’s lying next to the sink and puts it down again. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the other man shift his weight, uncomfortable, and so Rumlow keeps doing it, running his fingers along the kitchen counter, opening and closing cabinets and drawers. He opens the fridge, scans for alcohol—nothing except a single bottle of dubious-looking beer, which he grabs—closes the fridge, looks into another cabinet. Everything in this apartment is Rumlow’s to touch already, _everything_ , and they both know it; he can stand there and look uncomfortable all he wants and it’s not going to change one fucking thing.

There’s papers lying around, mixed in with the general mess of the place, and in one of the drawers he finds a notepad with a name and date written in thick, uneven letters on the top page, as if someone has gone over the same characters again and again with the same pen:

 

JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES

MARCH 10 1917

 

There’s some stuff underneath that, too, but it’s been crossed out.

So, he’s worked that much out.

“Good that you’ve got this written out nice and big here,” Rumlow says. “You write your name on your clothes in Sharpie too? Need a little L and R for your shoes?”

Barnes doesn’t answer. He stares at Rumlow in silence, only now he’s wearing that same pissed-off,  _I am so disappointed in you_ look on his face the soldier always used to get when he was upset about something. He is obviously not up to answering many questions, so Rumlow gestures at the duffel he’d dropped next to the table. “In the bag,” he says as he opens another drawer to look for a bottle opener. “All the info is in there.”

Barnes doesn’t move. “You know I don’t kill people anymore. So what d—”

“I didn’t say nothing about killing.” He can’t find a bottle opener anywhere in this shitty kitchen, so just cracks open the beer on the edge of the counter. “Open the fucking bag.”

Barnes just glares for a moment longer, but then pulls his hands out of his the pockets of his jacket—Rumlow hadn’t even noticed he’d had them in there—and squats down to open the duffel. Rumlow watches as he pulls out the manila folder that’d been sitting on top, and opens it to examine the stack of paper inside.

“That’s some information on a HYDRA facility about 100 miles from here,” Rumlow says. “It’s top-secret shit, above my pay grade, so this is all I can find. I need you to translate it.”

Barnes looks up at him, and his glare now has a lot more recognizable contempt. “You want me as a _translator_? There are other people who can translate for you. Thousands of them.”

Rumlow pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the kitchen counter. It feels good to get off his feet after the day he’s had. “Yeah, all right, kid. So I gotta go track down a translator that actually understands half of that HYDRA technical shit and code words, make sure he’s not someone who’s going to snitch on me to HYDRA halfway through the job, watch him all the way through so he doesn’t try to contact the good guys either, and _then_ kill him afterwards? Too much effort. You’re easier.”

Barnes makes a scoffing noise as if to say _thanks for the compliment_ , and Rumlow can’t help but smile. Interacting with a version of the soldier who acts almost like a real human is… kind of refreshing, actually. It’s not going to change the fundamentals of their relationship, but it’s new and different.

He takes a sip of the beer. It really is dubious, but it’s cold and liquid at least. “Plus,” he says, “there’s more in there.”

Barnes has already found it. Clipped to the back cover of the folder is another sheet of paper with the list of tasks Rumlow had written out. Barnes detaches it now, holding the sheet up with his black-gloved left hand, frowning, clearly taking in words like _phosphorus trichloride_ and _tungsten powder_. “You want me to get all this for you?”

“Is there someone else here?”

“You can do it yourself.”

Rumlow grins and gestures to his own face. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed, kid, but I’m not so inconspicuous these days. Hard to do things under the radar.”

He looks at him, still with that stupid pout on his face, then looks back down at the list. “Then hire someone. I know what resources you have access to these days. You can afford it.”

Aww, it’s sweet that he’s been keeping tabs on him. “We both know no one is as good at it as you.”

Barnes lowers the sheet. Silence for a few moments, and Rumlow takes another drink of beer. Then Barnes takes a slow breath, and shakes his head. “No.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“No.” Barnes returns the sheet of paper to the folder, lays it carefully back down on top of the black canvas of the duffel, and stands up. “I don’t kill people anymore. Like you said. I know what you’re going to do with these things if I get them for you. People will die, and I will have been involved. I’m not doing it.”

His voice is quiet, calm, and 100% determined.

Well, _this_ is something new. The soldier had always been a stubborn bastard, but Rumlow had never seen him use that stubbornness to outright _defy_ him like this. Christ, he almost feels _proud_ of him.

If it were anyone else Rumlow were trying to get to work for him, he’d argue. He’d negotiate, offer them something they couldn’t resist. Even if Rumlow just planned on killing them later—which is the case more often than not these days—he can still do a _hell_ of a good convincing act, and it almost always works so well that he doesn’t have to escalate to threats. But that won’t work here, clearly. Luckily, it doesn’t need to.

So he just takes another drink of the bad beer, then wipes his mouth. “You _are_ going to do it, Barnes. You know why?”

No answer, but Barnes is maybe already able to guess. He can see even from this distance, in the not-very-bright light from the ceiling lights in the entranceway, that there is already the slightest edge of terror on his face, showing through the stupid stubborn pout.

Rumlow smiles so hard it hurts. “Because I have the words.”

Barnes goes white. Rumlow is pretty sure he stops breathing.

Rumlow takes another drink. It’s kind of fun to just sit here and watch him standing there looking like a kid who’s just seen a boogeyman emerge from a closet. “You understand, Barnes?” he says even though it’s _obvious_ that he understands. “I say the words, right now, and then you’ll do _all_ of that stuff on that list for me, and more, and you will kill a _lot_ of people while you’re doing it. I’ll make sure of it.”

Barnes doesn’t move, or talk. He has started breathing again now, but only barely.

“I’m being nice to you here,” Rumlow tells him, raising his voice a little. “I’m trying to do things _your_ way. You think you’d be grateful for that, instead of fucking _complaining_.”

Still no reply. There’s the slightest tremor in his left arm; he has shoved the hand back into his pocket.

“So which way are we gonna go?” Rumlow says, like he’s really considering both options. “We can get started now. I’ll get you to get rid of a few people in this building that might’ve seen me come in—” Barnes moves then finally, flinches _really_ hard at that—“and then you do what I want, with maximum casualties. Or we do it all nice and restrained and voluntary like, and then I leave, and you get to jerk yourself off with nice fuzzy feelings about how much of a fucking humanitarian you are. Which is it?”

Rumlow takes another drink from the bottle, looks at him still standing there, and waits.

As an argument, it’s one of the most dumbest ones Rumlow has ever made. There are a _thousand_ ways Barnes could stop Rumlow before he finishes saying the ridiculously long list of phrases the Russians had implanted to open his brain. Barnes could knock Rumlow unconscious; he could rip his tongue out. Hell, he could just _bolt out the door and never come back_.

But none of that matters, since Rumlow isn’t really making an argument at all. He is giving Barnes an excuse. He is offering Barnes a palatable reason for him to agree to do this, to muffle whatever tender conscience the man has managed to salvage from that rotten meat in his head he’s calling a brain. This way, they can pretend that they both don’t know the real reason Barnes is going to do what he says: _because Rumlow is telling him to_.

For a while, there is no answer, but then finally something in the other man slackens; he drops his eyes.

It’s so good to see that Rumlow has to take a deep breath and just take it all in for a moment, shifting his weight slightly on the countertop. Life has been pretty shitty lately, and it’s good to appreciate the little victories.

There’ll be more time for appreciation later, though.

“It will take me days,” Barnes is saying, looking down at where he’d put down the folder. He seems to be talking to himself.

“I suppose we’ll have a lot of time to spend together,” Rumlow says and takes another drink, licks the beer off his lips. “I bet you’ve missed me.”

Barnes doesn't lift his gaze. He looks more utterly miserable than Rumlow has seen him look in a long time, and that is saying a _lot_.

Shouldn’t have stayed so alone, kid, he thinks. Should have learned more about real humans, and maybe you could have avoided this. Probably not, though.

“You just read all that again and make sure you’ve got everything down,” he says, and drains the rest of the beer. “Do you really not have anything else to drink?”

No answer.

“Well, I’m gonna be here for a while now, so we gotta do something about the lack of alcohol, ‘cos I sure as hell—”

He stops talking, because suddenly Barnes is looking up, his eyes wide with something like terror.

Rumlow freezes as well: current attitude problems aside, he has owed his continued survival many times over on the soldier’s reflexes, and he still trusts them now, despite everything else. In front of him, Barnes turns around, toward the apartment’s front door, and Rumlow follows his gaze as he finally picks up what Barnes had heard seconds ago: Someone is approaching in the corridor outside.

Barnes gestures, indicating he wants Rumlow to be out of sight of the door. There’s a knock at the door just as Rumlow starts to move, and Barnes turns back to him, gives Rumlow a look that Rumlow has seen many, many times before on the soldier’s face.

 _Please_ , the look says _._

This is all just confusing as hell: Barnes obviously doesn’t need any help physically defending himself from anyone who’s polite enough to knock—or anyone who isn’t, actually— so why give Rumlow that look? Rumlow moves back behind the counter, regardless, crouching down like an idiot. He draws his sidearm from the holster it’d been safely sitting in until now. Who the hell else could Barnes be in contact with, and why would he need help with it? It doesn’t make sense. If this is some sort of trick…

Barnes is already at the door.

He cannot see the person on the other side of the door when Barnes opens it, obviously, but the voice is female, which is—

She speaks, Barnes replies, and of course Rumlow doesn’t understand the language but from the tone that they are both using and from how old she sounds, it’s clear that—

Rumlow laughs, then, and the fact that laughing really fucking hurts his face is probably the only thing that makes him keep it quiet.

The person is not a threat—it’s the _opposite_. Barnes hadn’t been afraid of the person at the door, he’d been afraid of _Rumlow_. It should have been obvious, if he’d had it in his head that the soldier might actually be able to talk to people.

The tone at her end is approaching something like gentle scolding. Barnes replies, and replies again, the conversation low and so utterly normal-sounding, and three minutes later Barnes is calling out something that must mean goodbye and quietly closing the apartment door.

Rumlow has put away the gun by the time Barnes emerges from the entranceway, and he stands up. Barnes is holding the handle of a white plastic bag in one gloved hand, and there’s a stronger version of the food smell Rumlow had smelled in the corridor before.

Barnes doesn’t meet Rumlow’s eye: he sets the plastic bag down on the table. “Neighbor,” he says without looking up. “She had leftovers from dinner.”

He nods, resisting the urge to laugh again. So this is why Barnes had been so freaked out when Rumlow mentioned other people in the building. He wasn’t just worried about general hurting or killing; he has _specific people_ to be afraid of doing it to. He still looks scared even now: he is standing there beside the table with the same posture the soldier would always use when he thought someone was about to hit him.

“Relax, kid, it’s good,” Rumlow says, makes his voice come out all reassuring. “I’m hungry, so it’s good. You want me to get dishes?”

Barnes looks up, eyes wide: there’s a moment where his whole body sags with pure relief, like it’s such a huge deal to him that Rumlow isn’t going to go off and kill a random woman just to make a point.

Of course he isn’t going to do that. In fact, Rumlow’s in a great mood. This makes things so much better.

The food is good, some sort of soup with pork in it, and homemade bread. Rumlow fetches them bowls and cutlery from the shitty kitchen, and they sit down across from each other at the little table and eat in silence.

“Not bad,” Rumlow says after a minute. “No wonder you’ve put on weight. In a good way, I mean.”

Barnes doesn’t answer. He eats with one hand, left hand still gloved and pressed palm-down against the table’s laminate surface.

“I always thought they didn’t feed you enough.”

Still no answer.

“Your neighbor, she feed you because you remind her of a stray? Or you helping her out as well?”

“I’m helping her out,” he says, eventually, to the table.

Rumlow rips off another piece of bread. “Like taking out her trash? Or fucking her?”

Barnes looks up, and the momentary _genuinely shocked_ expression is almost too much, although it’s almost instantly replaced with a scowl. His hand twitches on the table.

Rumlow’s bowl is almost empty; he pushes it away and leans back in his chair. “Oh sweetheart, I’m just fucking with you. I know you wouldn’t cheat on me that way.”

Barnes looks down at the table again, and even though the light isn’t great where they’re sitting he can see his color change. He has stopped eating, and he doesn’t start again, and after a minute Rumlow just grabs his bowl from across the table and finishes his serving himself.

He’s a nice guy, though, so afterwards he helps Barnes clear the dishes from the table and puts them in the sink, then sets the folder from the duffel down in front of him, even retrieves a notebook and a pen. After a few seconds, Barnes picks the pen up. Rumlow watches him for a while, but that gets dull after a few minutes, especially with no alcohol.

“I’m gonna use your shower,” he says. Barnes doesn’t look up.

The water in the shower doesn’t get very hot, but the bathroom is clean and Rumlow is not a fan of super hot water these days anyway. It’s so warm in the apartment that he doesn’t bother getting dressed again afterward, just pulls on boxers. He tosses the rest of the clothes he’d been wearing next to the mattress next to the bathroom door that apparently serves as a bed in this place. He sets down the pistol and holster nearby, next to the radiator. He hadn’t planned on lying down, but he’s tired and the mattress is comfortable and doesn’t smell too awful. He’s not worried about being unconscious in front of Barnes: if the man had wanted him to be dead or hurt, he’d already be dead or hurt.

When he wakes up, it must be past midnight. He must have dragged the cover half over himself in his sleep, because it’s covering him. All the lights that had been on when Rumlow got here are still on: the one in the entranceway, the fluorescent lamp in the kitchen. Barnes is still sitting at the table. He doesn’t seem to have moved.

He lies back against the pillow for a moment: call him sentimental, but it’s good to be somewhere like this after all this time. Comfortable, no noise except the occasional car outside, no concerns about who you could trust, whether you were paying the people around you enough. That was thing he missed about HYDRA: the unquestioning loyalty.

He looks down past the foot of the mattress to where Barnes is sitting pooled in light, and smiles. “That’s enough for tonight, kid,” he says. “Come to bed.”

Even from where he’s lying, he can see Barnes’s shoulders stiffen. “I can be done with this by tomorrow if you let me stay up and finish.”

Rumlow raises his eyebrows, props himself up onto one elbow. It’s natural, he figures, to expect some resistance—not acceptable, but natural.

Rumlow _could_ just threaten him, obviously, but there are better ways. There have _always_ been better ways. Yates, the guy at SHIELD who’d been in charge of handling the soldier directly before Rumlow had taken over—he had never understood that. Yates had had a thing for fucking with the soldier for no reason: beating him up bad when he hadn’t done anything wrong, yelling contradictory bullshit at him until the soldier got confused and said the wrong thing or replied in the wrong language, and then punishing him for that. The type of over-the-top idiot you find in any military organization. It was unprofessional, and _petty_ , and of course it’d just made the soldier get all fucked-up and jittery whenever he was around any of them, and then everyone else on the team had to deal with it.

So Rumlow had gone over Yates’ head a few times: nothing too direct, just mentioning to the higher-ups that his treatment was messing with the soldier’s programming, and that he was concerned. It hadn’t helped much, not until there had been a field accident when he and Rumlow were working together that had cost Yates several fingers and some movement in his arm. Yates had insisted he’d still been able to do the job, but the tide had turned after that, and the higher-ups had started listening to Rumlow’s concerns. It was only a matter of time before Rumlow had convinced them to let him dispatch Yates; he’d _also_ successfully convinced them to let him use the soldier to do it. That part been extremely satisfactory, and the soldier had followed Rumlow around like a puppy afterwards, which was a nice bonus.

(It’d also been a valuable advanced warning about how HYDRA dealt with people who were physically compromised and who weren’t supersoldiers, which had come in useful for his decision-making once Rumlow had woken up injured in the hospital. But no mind.)

Rumlow gets to his feet now, stretching a little. He heads over to the kitchen area, turns off the light there, then goes to the light switch in the entranceway, flicks that one off, too. The new dimness is still full of faint orange city-light from the windows, enough to see clearly that Barnes is not moving at all. He remains completely still as Rumlow goes to him, lays his hand down on his left shoulder.

“You need your rest,” Rumlow says, leaning in, voice soft. “Come on, look at you. You’re so tired.”

No answer. The muscles in this shoulder are all fucked up, but Barnes always liked being touched there, gently, and Rumlow does it now, digging in through the fabric of his jacket. Barnes is still staring down at the paper in front of him like he can still read it in this light. Maybe he can, who knows.

Rumlow brings his other hand up to the back of his neck, rubs his fingers in circles over the very base of his skull. It’s working: he hears the other man’s shaky exhale, so desperately quiet, like Barnes thinks he won’t be able to hear him, like he thinks he can’t feel every expanding and contracting breath, every time his muscles loosen a little and he weakens.

Rumlow moves to pull the jacket back off his shoulders, and he tenses up again, breathing in sharply. Rumlow grips down on his shoulder again, this time right where the skin meets the metal. He’d always known, intellectually, that touching him there must be painful; now he _really_ knows. Barnes whimpers like a kicked dog, goes limp, and lets him pull the jacket off.

And then it’s already over: Barnes stands up like he’s being pulled by a string, and allows himself to be led the short distance to the mattress on the floor.

Yeah, there are better ways.

The mattress creaks a little under Rumlow when he lies back down on it, on his back. Barnes sits on the edge, facing away, looking like he wants to curl up on himself, but nevertheless he begins to strip without even being told. Methodical, slow, first his gloves, then his boots and then the long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing, then the shirt under that, putting them all down neatly next to Rumlow’s discarded black clothing. He lifts his hips off the mattress to pull down his jeans and underwear so he can do it without straightening up. His skin a dark pinkish orange in the light from the window, the glow reflecting dull off his arm. He sits like that on the edge of the mattress, naked but still facing away, hair over his face, and finally Rumlow reaches out to grab his left arm so he can pull him back.

Barnes says something quietly, one word. He doesn’t look at him.

“What’s that?” Rumlow asks.

“I’ll do the translation for you,” he says. “I’ll work for you. I’ll do the things on your list. I’ll—” His voice drops even lower. “Please.”

Christ, wasn’t this something. Barnes has already caved in to freelancing as a terrorist’s sidekick, but sure, let him think he’s going to take a stand now to protect his nonexistent virtue.

Rumlow is nice about it, though. He sits up, lifts his hand, strokes Barnes’ hair this time. He doesn’t even need to _say_ anything, that’s the funny part, he just keeps touching him until Barnes exhales, the resistance already leaching out of him.

“You done crying?” he says after a minute.

Barnes nods, so tiny he can hardly see it.

“You gonna let me take care of you?”

Another tiny nod.

“Good.” Rumlow presses his face into his hair, which is as soft as ever and smells surprisingly nice, like shampoo instead of the plain soap it used to. He brushes strands of hair back, speaks against the warm patch of skin behind his ear. “I’m not so pretty anymore. Sorry ‘bout that, kid. But it’s ok, you don’t have to face me.”

Barnes stays very still, but doesn’t resist as Rumlow cups his hand firmly around the back of his skull, guides him face-down onto the pillow. Rumlow digs his fingers into his thigh to encourage him to move, and Barnes moves, allows Rumlow to bring his knees up under him. Rumlow shifts so he’s behind him, and then on second thought, reaches out across his back and maneuvers Barnes’ head to one side on the pillow. This way, he has a pretty good view of his face in the faint light from the window above the bed. From what he can see, Barnes’ expression is currently blank: no embarrassment on his face despite the humiliating position.

Kind of disappointing. There’s barely even a reaction when Rumlow spits on his own fingers. Barnes’ eyes go wide for a second when he feels Rumlow touch him, but then he squeezes them shut.

“Eyes open,” Rumlow says, low, and he does it so quickly it’s almost instinctual.

He keeps his eyes on Barnes’ face as he pushes two fingers inside him, quick, harsh, making no effort to be gentle—Barnes can take it. The man winces, briefly, but seems to adapt to the discomfort almost immediately; he is trying to stay calm and keep his breathing even, even as Rumlow feels his body trying instinctively to reject him.

He spits again, works his fingers in and out almost lazily: he is not aiming to get Barnes hard this way, or even trying to stretch him; really he just wanted this to be all sudden and degrading, to get him so helplessly open to Rumlow already after being fully clothed five minutes ago. Honestly, just thinking about all the layers of clothing he’d been hiding under gets Rumlow harder than anything he’s seeing in front of him, and his other hand moves to free himself from the boxers he’s still wearing.

But it’s kind of fascinating, just seeing his face like this, watching Barnes reacting in a way the soldier never would have. He’d had plans of just fucking him hard and quick and then going back to sleep, but—the reality of the situation doesn’t seem to have truly _sunk in_ for Barnes yet, and it’d be nice to keep looking at him as it does, see it all on his face—the knowledge that he is right back where he started, getting fucked by one of the people who used to own him, with nothing he can do about it. Maybe seeing that in his eyes will make up, a little bit, for all the trouble Barnes had caused by _not doing his fucking job right_.

He grabs himself quickly through the cloth of his boxers, just a few strokes to pacify his dick, then settles in a little to get a closer look at Barnes’ face—but apart from the expected discomfort, Barnes just looks… resigned. He is clearly having a hell of a bad day, but he looks more _tired_ than anything else, and it’s not the same.

Well, Rumlow can work on that.

“Mmm, you’re tight,” he says and smiles a little. “You been saving yourself for me?”

No answer. Rumlow makes a disappointed noise and twists his fingers, and Barnes moans, his eyes widening.

“I asked you a question, Barnes. You fucked anyone else since we last had fun together?”

Barnes winces again, shakes his head just enough for him to see, hair falling over his face with the movement.

“Good,” he says, and he is nicer now as a reward, just like he always is, moving his fingers and crooking them forward until—

_“Ah!”_

Barnes actually _yells_ in a way that makes Rumlow bark out a laugh: Barnes sounds so surprised it’s like he’d _forgotten_ , and maybe he had, who the fuck knows. It’s only for a moment before Barnes clamps his mouth shut, and then his eyes move, drop to look in the direction of the apartment door—he’s scared that someone will have heard, probably, either because he’s humiliated or he because he thinks drawing attention will make Rumlow more likely to kill his neighbors. Then his eyes flick back up to Rumlow—clearly he knows already that Rumlow has seen him scared, knows well that Rumlow will exploit that.

He’s so perceptive. They know each other so well, it’s fucking _romantic_.

Rumlow repeats the motion, scraping at his prostate with absolutely no finesse or gentleness, watches Barnes’ throat move and his lip tremble as he tries to hold back more cries. His left hand is tearing at the fabric next to the pillow.

“Shh, baby, don’t be sad. You just remember what you like, ’s’all. Waiting all this time while we were apart, that’s so good.” He pauses as Barnes lets out another moan. “Mm. Gonna get you a fucking promise ring.”

Barnes is biting his lip. There’s a flicker of confusion in his eyes.

“Guess you were asleep while promise rings were big,” Rumlow says. “No matter. We’re together again now. Must have known it was going to happen, yeah? Know I’d come back?”

Barnes groans, but then he seems to get a hold of himself a little, breathing in deep, pushing his face down into the pillow as his left hand relaxes next to it. “Don’t you ever…” he mumbles, “Don’t you ever _shut up_ …”

Rumlow smiles, because this new attitude is cute, but still— _not acceptable_. He moves quick and cruel: curls his fingers, digs in his thumb, and presses down _hard_ with his fingernails into any sensitive flesh he can find, dragging them down over the smooth heat of the other man’s insides and into his perineum. Barnes cries out with the pain, tenses around him. His left hand clenches again into a fist, tearing into the fabric of the mattress until it rips and gives way, but he doesn’t try to throw Rumlow off.

“No need to be rude when we’re both having so much fun,” Rumlow says, leaning down over him. He pulls his fingers out—another cut-off gasp—and wipes them on the mattress. There’s a bit of blood, but not much. He slaps Barnes’ human shoulder in a way that would be friendly if he hadn’t done it so hard. “Lie on your back.”

Barnes turns over, pushing himself up with his metal arm, and Rumlow moves a little too so he is resting on his haunches on the mattress next to the other man’s hips. Barnes’ chest is still rising and falling a little too quickly. Rumlow just smiles down at him, and the man flinches as Rumlow reaches out to grab his cock, like he’s expecting further pain. He frowns in confusion when Rumlow simply wraps his hand around him and starts jerking him off like he’s doing a bro a favor.

He can’t blame Barnes for being confused: Rumlow hadn’t been planning this part either. He is _uncomfortably_ hard himself now, straining out of the boxers, and the desire to touch himself is so bad that it’s risen up in his throat like it can interfere with his breathing. But he has always been good at self control, and it can wait: right now he still wants to see Barnes’ face, concentrate on it in a way he can’t do while he’s fucking him.

Barnes starts off only semi-hard, maybe as a result of that last adventure, but Rumlow’s good at this part, too good. It doesn’t take long for the discomfort and confusion on Barnes’ face to melt away like snow, replaced with a look of dull pleasure that’s so dumbly _overwhelmed_ it’s almost cute. His left hand is digging into the mattress again, scratching at the torn fabric like it’s flesh, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His other hand twitches slightly, occasionally. 

Rumlow exhales, taking it all in, the layer of sweat forming on the other man’s skin and reflecting the light from the window, his mouth falling half-open. His own voice comes out rough when he says: “I think you missed me.”

Barnes doesn’t answer, and Rumlow finally gives in and pulls down the front of his own boxers, starts working himself with his free hand while trying and mostly succeeding to keep up the rhythm on the other man. Below him, Barnes’ balls are tight already, cock dark with blood in the dull light, muscles twitching as his hips jerk upward minutely with every one of Rumlow’s upward strokes. This is—almost too easy. Has this guy even been jerking off while they’ve been apart? It’s not like he hasn’t had the time to.

Maybe he doesn’t think he deserves it. Maybe he didn’t remember that he could. Or maybe it’s just not the same when he’s alone.

“I think…” Rumlow breathes out, his hand moving faster on himself now, a blur in the corner of his vision. He can smell his own arousal over the other man’s fresh sweat and the mustiness of the apartment. “Mm. I think you’re going to tell me if you ever touched yourself right here in this room.” He watches as Barnes’ eyes move to his, his face blank. “Do you think of me, Barnes? When you jerk off? You think of all the fun we had together over the years?”

Still no answer—maybe he is just too dazed to understand, or maybe it’s still part of his new attitude problem. Rumlow lets go of Barnes’ cock—his hips buck up automatically, like he misses the pressure—and then flicks his finger _hard_ at the underside of his balls. Barnes yelps, and Rumlow follows up by grabbing on to them—not hurting him yet, just warning.

“ _I—asked—a—question_ ,” he says, and gives his balls a little squeeze. “Do you think about me?”

Barnes just looks at him, mouth open and eyes red from that last bit of punishment, dumbly processing the question.

Rumlow squeezes his sac again almost thoughtfully, uses his thumbnail to dig in to the tight skin on the underside of Barnes’ cock as he continues to stroke himself with his other hand. _Do you think of me when you jerk off alone in this shitty room,_ he thinks, _do you try to pretend you’re somewhere else, not even knowing where you want that somewhere else to be, Christ you’re pathetic—_

Barnes’ eyes are on him for a second longer, wide, looking up at him so sad and wet and _honest_ now, and then—

He nods.

It hits Rumlow like a punch, the hand on his own cock squeezing down almost on its own accord, stroking hard and just right so that it barely takes a few seconds to get himself over the edge, and he jerks forward and spills hot all over Barnes’ stomach, his chest, his chin.

Everything is bright, blurred-out. He slumps over him, hips still jerking up into the grip of his own fist, milking the last of his orgasm onto the mattress and the other man’s skin.

“Jesus,” he says when he can talk and breathe again, and then laughs. Probably the endorphins, but laughing doesn’t hurt this time. “ _Wow_.”

Barnes is looking at the ceiling. His eyes are still red.

Rumlow is a nice guy, though, so he keeps going once he has gotten his breath back. He climbs on so that he’s straddling Barnes’ legs and then just jerks him off that way, harder now and still dry and relentless, until Barnes’ whole body tenses and spasms like he’s trying and failing to throw him off, until Rumlow helps him swallow back a loud cry by putting his other hand over his mouth, until he comes onto his own chest, metal arm straining to hold still and face twisted up like it hurts so, so much.

Then he is done, and Rumlow climbs off him. Barnes closes his eyes. He is shaking, and when he tries to turn onto his side Rumlow lets him do it.

Rumlow gets up to get a cigarette from his bag, and lights it and then comes back to lie next to him. The sweat from the parts of Rumlow's body that can still sweat is cool and refreshing on his skin. Some kind of big truck goes by on a road below outside, one of the old radiators is creaking, and Barnes is still breathing heavily, but otherwise it’s quiet. It’s nice.

He puts out the cigarette on the floor when he’s done. He’s gotten colder by now, so he turns toward where Barnes is still on his side, wraps an arm around his waist and presses close so that he gets a faceful of that nice-smelling hair. The skin of Barnes' back is warm against Rumlow’s chest, if a little tacky from the sweat, and the shaking has stopped.

Barnes’ whole body has thickened, but it’s still nothing; he still won’t fight. Rumlow explores a little, runs his fingers through the drying liquid on his belly and his chest. Touches the rough hair at the base of his abdomen, palms at the almost-soft flesh of his cock, then moves his hand back over his hip, his ass.

Barnes is holding himself very still now, and Rumlow teases at the back of his balls, then moves his fingers back, presses the pads of his index and middle fingers firmly against where he’d entered him before. Barnes’ resolve fails—his whole body flinches—but he still doesn’t move away.

“Shh,” Rumlow coos. The skin under his fingers is warm, soft; it feels unused and undamaged despite the rough treatment earlier. The softness and the new trembling through Barnes’ body is almost innocent.

“We’re going to have a lot more fun with this tomorrow night,” Rumlow says into his ear, his breath disturbing the hair falling over it. “Okay, honey? We’re going to play with this a lot, just like old times.”

Another flinch, a tiny noise from somewhere in his throat. He’s so much bigger, and he will never fight.

“What was that, sweetheart?” Rumlow asks. He bites the edge of his ear, softly. “Didn’t hear it.”

Despite the silence in the room, the voice is so quiet that Rumlow feels it more than anything else.

“Yes, sir.” Barnes says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have shamed my ancestors

Rumlow is awake, on his back and pressed into the mattress, and Barnes’ metal hand is wrapped around his neck.

Barnes is not trying to kill him. Rumlow knows this not by any creative logic but by the fact that he isn’t already dead. And yet the hand’s on his throat and Barnes is _over him_ , face in shadow in the still-dark room and hair hanging down like a fucking shroud, and his eyes are open but not really there and the metal is pressing down on Rumlow’s pulse so that the world is already greying out—

“ _Barnes_ ,” he manages, voice barely making it as one hand grabs uselessly at the arm. His vision is starting to blur. The arm is so _heavy_ , everything is so heavy. “ _Wake up_.”

Nothing except that the hand slides upwards a little on his neck, forcing Rumlow’s head up and back, almost like the man is trying to get a better look at him.

“Barnes. For god’s sake—” Then, sucking in another breath, Rumlow tries that stupid name: _“Bucky.”_

It works, after a second. The other man lets go of his neck, and Rumlow gulps in air and _shoves_ , then curls in on himself as the weight lifts off him. His head pounds; the scar tissue on his neck stings from the pressure.

Barnes still doesn’t seem to be truly awake; he has straightened up and is sitting down on his heels in the middle of the mattress, but he is staring right at Rumlow apparently without seeing him. He’s still naked, which might make any other person less threatening. He just looks inhuman.

“You’re having a nightmare or some shit,” Rumlow says as he slowly sits up, backs up on the mattress some more, moving until he can reach the pistol he’d laid down on the floor next to the radiator. Then it’s in his hand, reassuring and heavy.

Barnes doesn’t answer, just drops his head down, staring at something in the vicinity of his bare knees, like he’s distracted. After a moment he holds up his metal hand in front of his face and looks at it, like he’s not sure what it’s doing there.

“Fucking idiot,” Rumlow says, probably a bit louder than is a good idea, but luckily Barnes doesn’t seem to notice.

Rumlow’s throat hurts like a bitch and the residual fear he’s trying to swallow down is almost as painful. He pulls himself up, gives Barnes a wide berth as he moves, keeping the gun pointed in his direction even after he’s gotten a good distance between them. Barnes doesn’t move again, though, just sits there like that. Eventually, distractedly, he lies back down on his side on the mattress. Ten minutes later, he’s asleep for real. 

Christ, what a freak.

After some internal debate about the noise it’s going to make, Rumlow goes to fetch some ice from the freezer for his neck. He wraps the ice in a dishcloth, holds it there—he keeps the pistol in his other hand—then goes to his bag to get some new clothes for himself. He expects Barnes to wake up, but apparently whatever he’s got going on in his head has left him dead to the world. After dressing and giving it some more consideration, Rumlow sits down on the sofa: it isn’t that comfortable, and it has a weird smell to it, but keeping this amount of distance involves less of a chance of dealing with another fucking cyborg nightmare attack.

He sits. The ice melts slowly against his neck, and doesn’t help much.

But Barnes doesn’t stir again. Rumlow stays awake that way for a long time regardless, still holding the pistol, but eventually dozes off, and when he wakes up the sun is up, the mattress is empty, and Barnes is gone.

 

* * *

 

Rumlow’s list is gone too, and so are Barnes’ clothes and some of the gear Rumlow had brought, so presumably he has left to do the stuff Rumlow told him to. In fact, that’s the only option—if Barnes had wanted to defy Rumlow that badly, he would have killed him and been done with it. He would know that if he didn’t, Rumlow would find him again, and that it would be—bad. And Barnes _definitely_ wouldn’t have left him alone for good in an apartment building full of people who he doesn’t want to be dead.

He has a cigarette over the sink in the kitchen, rubbing his neck absently with his other hand. So. Nightmares, then. That hadn’t happened before. It’s not _that_ surprising, he supposes, but still, _Christ_. It aches just to swallow, and he doesn’t even have any alcohol in here to help him cope.

He spends most of the morning working with the half-completed translation, until around midday when he needs a break. Another time, he might have gone out to get his hands on some alcohol, and then perhaps spent time seeing what this town had to offer in terms of women. That won’t work these days, for obvious reasons, and it’s probably not wise to draw any attention to himself. So he waits, and after a while he gets bored and starts looking around the apartment.

There’s a notebook that’s been shoved half under the mattress, slim and with a black cover. Each page has a year written at the top, going back decades and ending on a page labeled _2014_. At least half of the pages are blank apart from that, but the rest of the years have writing under them—some have just a few words, others have text filling half the page. The writing is in some sort of code Barnes has apparently made up, but it’s not hard to figure out what the general subject is: he’s been writing down memories, and there aren’t many of them.

Kinda sad, really. He shoves the notebook back under the mattress and looks around some more. There’s food in the fridge, and in one of the cupboards in the kitchen, enough for him to put together a decent lunch for himself—man, it’s funny thinking about Barnes choosing his own food, but at least it’s here. He then spends some time looking for weapons, checking all the usual hiding spots he can think of: inside of doors, behind the toekicks under the cabinets in the kitchen, behind loose tiles in the bathroom, under false bottoms in the drawers. He finds nothing. No guns. No grenades. Not even a _knife_ , apart from the ones in the kitchen. It’s annoying in the sense that Rumlow can’t steal anything useful, but he supposes it makes sense. If Barnes is as afraid of killing people as he seems to be, he wouldn’t keep other weapons around, so he can minimize the damage he can do if he gets triggered.

It’s fucking touching.

What he _does_ find, instead, is more notebooks. Dozens of them.

Most are unreadable, written in the same code as the first notebook. One of them is stuffed with a sheaf of papers on Steve Rogers, newspaper clippings and printouts that go back half a decade. Christ, talk about gay. How many pictures of a guy did you need?

He looks through a few of the articles: as much as he despises Rogers, maybe there is something useful he can learn here as well. But he quickly realizes that Barnes doesn’t seem be able to distinguish between his sources: serious articles and information are mixed in with internet rumors and tabloid bullshit speculating about who Captain America is dating. Even more amusing are the handwritten notes Barnes has made: some of the printed words are underlined with question marks next to them, or have definitions penned in underneath: newer technological words Barnes obviously doesn’t understand, celebrities he hasn’t heard of.

It’s funny, although not funny enough to justify looking at Captain America’s stupid smirking face for longer than he needs to, so he shoves the bundle of papers back in the notebook and pushes it haphazardly back into its hiding place. Nothing else in the apartment is that interesting, so he sits down at the table and goes back to the translation.

It’s evening when Barnes comes in. He is carrying what looks like two large and very heavy black gym bags, as well as a smaller plastic bag in one hand. He closes the door quietly behind him.

“I got the things you wanted,” he says, and sets down the larger bags. Then he stops, pauses like he’s embarrassed. “And I got dinner. Takeout.”

Rumlow smiles. Well, that’s something. Maybe Barnes remembers last night and is sorry about it. Also, thinking about him _ordering_ food like a real person is just funny.

Barnes puts the plastic bag on the table, and Rumlow squats down to open one of the larger bags Barnes had just set down. He pokes around very carefully inside, and whistles through his teeth. Christ, _he’s really done it_. He knew it was worth coming to him.

Rumlow wouldn’t usually have praised him—you don’t get praise just for doing your job—but he does it now. “Shit, Barnes. I’m impressed.”

Barnes is silently setting out food containers. He doesn’t reply, but that’s to be expected. He finishes unpacking the food, and they sit down and eat in silence. Barnes isn’t looking at him, seems to actually be trying to pretend he isn’t there, but Rumlow doesn’t mind for now. Despite all that bullshit last night, things are going _well_.

When he’s done, Rumlow pushes the empty takeout container away, leans back to get a look at the other man. Barnes has already stopped eating as well, and now seems to be pretending not to notice him. The apartment is quiet. The neighbor on the same floor who had been watching tv for a good part of the day seems to have gone out for the night.

Rumlow says: “So, you kill anyone?”

He barely reacts to the question, meeting Rumlow’s eye only for a moment before shifting his gaze somewhere behind him, in the direction of the kitchen. “I did everything you said,” he says. “I’ll finish the translation tonight, and then you should—”

He stops talking when Rumlow stands up, and god, the way Barnes makes no attempt to rise from his chair, doesn’t even look up at him now, the way he just sits there facing straight ahead like he can’t even lift his eyes—

Rumlow touches the skin on his cheek; it’s rough with stubble, still cool from the outside evening air. Barnes’ jaw clenches; Rumlow sees him swallow and lick his lips. “If you—let me finish the work,” he starts again, faltering only a little as Rumlow’s hand moves to his hair. “Tonight. I can start now, and—”

Rumlow grabs down on a handful of hair, twists.

Barnes’s left arm goes up like he’s going to stop him, but then the movement halts with a jerk. Watching him stop himself like that has always been Rumlow’s favorite part of working with him.

He smiles. “Enough talking,” he says down at him. “Go over to the bed.”

“Fuck you,” Barnes says, quietly.

Rumlow laughs, and right now laughing hurts his face _and_ his throat, which is a good reminder of why this bad attitude is an even _bigger_ problem today. Barnes really doesn’t seem to have learned _anything_ from their time together so far. He was always so fucking stubborn.

“Enough. Talking,” he repeats, and pulls the other man towards him by the hair, forcing him sideways off the chair and onto the wooden floor. Some of the hair comes out as he’s doing it, but most is still attached when Barnes hits the floor on his knees. Despite how much bigger he is now, he still manages to do it with surprising grace, and the impact barely makes a noise. Rumlow draws his foot back and kicks him hard in the side of his thigh through his jeans, and then in the ribs.

Barnes is already cooperating after that, crawling toward the mattress, but Rumlow kicks him a few more times on the way anyway, for good measure.

“Strip,” he says down to him once Barnes is there, and then turns back toward the kitchen.

There’s a little bottle he’d seen earlier in one of the cabinets while looking for food: Rumlow can’t understand all the writing on it, obviously, but it seems to be some sort of cooking oil, so it’ll do. He picks it up and then stands there and waits, holding it, turning the bottle in his hand and running one finger along the edge of the plastic lid, until Barnes has finally finished undressing. Then he heads back to the mattress, kicks Barnes hard in his human shoulder to get him to lie down on his back. Swings one leg over him, drops down heavily onto his bare chest and takes hold of his hair again with the hand that’s not grasping the bottle.

But Barnes, despite being naked and supine, apparently isn’t done. He lifts up his head, and spits in Rumlow’s face.

Rumlow grins at that; he can’t help it, despite the flare of distaste and the soreness still tugging at his neck; this is so much more _interesting_ than any good time they’ve had in years. He lets go of Barnes’ hair, raises his hand. There’s a satisfyingly loud _crack_ as he slaps Barnes across the face, then another as he follows it up with another blow, splitting open Barnes’ lip. He looks down at the other man, still grinning, and feels the spit slide down off the edge of his jaw and fall somewhere around Barnes’ scarred collarbone.

Barnes is breathing hard. Hair has fallen across his face, a mark of red blood across his bottom lip, staining his wet teeth. But the stupid, helpless _defiance_ is still right there on that bloodied face, and it is just going right to Rumlow’s cock, and it’s too urgent. Rumlow lets the bottle fall onto the mattress beside him so he can use both hands to undo his pants, his belt.

The palm of the hand he’d slapped him with is still throbbing with the force of the blow, the dull pain of it almost pleasant. The skin there is hot against Rumlow’s cock when he takes it out of his underwear.

“Open up,” Rumlow says and shifts his hips up, raises himself on his knees and pushes forward, straddling Barnes’ neck, crowding him hopelessly. “Open up, sweetheart.”

Barnes won’t look at him, but he opens his mouth. His hair’s still in his face, and a few strands find their way into his mouth alongside Rumlow’s dick. Rumlow brushes these strands free—one leaves a tiny little trail of bloodied spit from the edge of his mouth—and tucks the wet strands carefully behind Barnes’ ear as he tilts his own hips forward, shoving in deeper, moving his hips to work himself in and out of the other man’s open mouth. He has to lift Barnes’ head to get a good working angle, which means he has less of a good view of his face, even though the lights are all on right now and he can see so much better than last night.

It’s a shame, because despite all the bullshit, despite his whole face and neck flushing red with humiliation or anger or just not being able to breathe right, Barnes is _helping out_ : he lifts his head to help Rumlow’s cock go down easier, he opens his mouth obediently, breathing through his nose; he works the underside of Rumlow’s cock with his tongue like a pro.

The poor dumb bastard probably thinks he can just get Rumlow off quickly like this and it will all be over. Like he just has to swallow him down and then he can crawl off and go back to his nightmares and Rumlow will leave him alone. So when Rumlow pulls out of his mouth after a couple of minutes, smearing Barnes’ bottom lip with more saliva to mix with the blood drying there, Barnes looks up at him with an expression that is not just surprised but _disappointed_.

Rumlow gives him a comforting pat on his cheek—it’s still a darker red from the slap—and climbs off him. “’S okay, baby. You just turn over now. Hands and knees.”

The face Barnes makes is absolutely _beautiful_ , and if Rumlow hadn’t been so determined not to let him off easy tonight he might have just jerked off onto his pretty face right then. Instead, he pinches his red cheek, smiles down at him. “I told you yesterday that we were gonna _play_ , honey, don’t act surprised.”

Barnes just keeps his eyes on him, silent, like he’s trying to make him feel guilty. It doesn’t work, obviously, and so he eventually does move the way Rumlow wanted him, pushing himself up and turning to get on all fours, the mattress creaking under his shifting weight.

Rumlow pats him reassuringly on the side of one bare thigh. He picks up the discarded bottle of oil from where it’d rolled near the edge of the mattress, twists the lid off, and pours some of the slick liquid over his hand before setting it down again. The sound that it makes must be loud or obvious: he can see Barnes tensing up already, hands shifting against the fabric, the metal hand looking like it’s trying to clench into a fist.

He starts with two fingers again, a little slower this time. Barnes doesn’t make a sound when Rumlow pushes them in, but rocks forward slightly, thighs squeezing together as if that could achieve anything.

“Shh, it’s okay.” Rumlow holds him steady by the hip with his other hand, gives him another reassuring pat there when something he hits inside makes him shiver. “We’ve done this a lot. So many times. That’s it. Good, open up for me.”

And—he can feel him trying. Despite all those attitude problems, the tough-guy stoicism act from yesterday seems to have disappeared. Maybe he’s just more upset today, or more afraid of what’s coming, but he makes no real attempt to stay calm: it’s barely a minute before Rumlow sees a tremor move all through him, like he has spent too long in a stress position.

Rumlow shifts his free hand from Barnes' hip, rubbing it against the small of the other man’s back, digging his fingers in on either side of the base of his spine. Barnes arches up a little. His breath has already turned harsh and uneven, catching in his throat whenever one of Rumlow’s nails drags on something inside him, whenever a callus scrapes too harshly. Rumlow can only hold out for so long, listening to that, and he takes his hand off his back—he swears Barnes makes a little sad noise—and moves it to his own cock. Barnes’ saliva has already dried up, so he swipes up a bit of the excess oil that’s dribbling down the inside of Barnes’ thigh, slicks himself up, and just— _watches_ Barnes taking his fingers.

Barnes whole body is rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly, like he doesn’t know whether he is trying to escape or get closer. Rumlow strokes himself, the oil on his skin making a little wet noise with every sharp movement of his hand. The head of his dick hits the back of Barnes’ thigh once or twice when he can’t help but buck his hips forward.

He pushes a third finger in, and Barnes moans loudly, then immediately turns his head and presses his face into his right shoulder, like he’s embarrassed about the noise, or still worried about his neighbors. It’s such an appealing reaction that Rumlow’s breath stops in his throat, and he does something he hadn’t planned: he folds his little finger across the other three, tucking it in, and pushes that inside as well. The surprised whimper makes it worth it.

“Good that you finished everything I needed you for already, yeah?” Rumlow says over the rhythmic slick sounds his hand is still making on his own dick. “‘Cos you’re probably not gonna be able to walk for a while.”

Barnes drops his head down again, hair falling forward. “I hate you,” he says.

Still hasn’t given up the attitude, then. Disappointing, after everything nice they’ve done for each other. Hitting him before hadn’t helped, clearly, but there are always other ways.

Rumlow gives his own cock a final gentle squeeze, like he’s making it a promise, and then lets go, leans closer to snake his hand around Barnes’ hips and grasp the other man’s dick. It’s hard already, not surprisingly, straining up against the skin of his stomach. Barnes shrinks back instinctually from the sudden contact, which only pushes him back further onto Rumlow’s fingers. Rumlow smiles, and leans himself further over Barnes’ back, as close as he can get while still giving himself room to keep his fingers moving inside him. The position makes his own cock jut up hard against the back of Barnes’ thigh, right where it meets his ass. Barnes twitches at that, but holds still.

“I took a look around while you were out.” Rumlow says, and he’s close enough now that his breath shifts the hair lying over the back of Barnes’ neck, close enough to feel the heat of the damp skin of his back. “Found your little Captain America collection. You ain’t got a thing to worry about, don’t worry. Rogers’s a nice guy, like me. He’ll be ok with knowing you took HYDRA cock. You didn’t have a choice.”

No answer. Rumlow can feel him breathe under him.

He curls the fingers of his other hand in a way that makes Barnes’ cock twitch helplessly in his tight grip. “Course, you have a choice _now_ , and you’re still letting me do this. But I’m sure he’ll understand. Like I said, a nice guy.”

Barnes hisses in breath through his teeth, shaky, like he’s going to cry or something, and Rumlow feels himself shiver.

But then Barnes breathes out again, turns his head to look back at Rumlow over his shoulder. He bares his teeth, making an effort like he’s trying to sneer at him. “Does Ste—does he know you talk about him so much during sex?”

Rumlow’s teeth clench, and the movement is almost automatic: he twists the hand that’s half inside him, shoves it forward, sudden and as hard as he can.

“ _Ahh-hh,”_ Barnes says, and then lifts his human hand off the mattress to cover his mouth, muffling the cry. Rumlow doesn’t stop; he pushes in past the knuckles too quick, and then something inside of Barnes gives way, spilling red heat over Rumlow’s fingers. Barnes makes a sharp noise of agony into his hand. His left arm gives out and he collapses forward, propped up on one metal forearm. Rumlow makes a sound that might be embarrassing if the other man was in any state to notice.

Things have quickly turned urgent, and he lets go of Barnes’ dick and instead wraps his arm around Barnes’ waist from behind, pinning him. He’s only a little more gentle than he’d been before as he pulls his fingers out—another choked cry from Barnes—and takes hold of his own dick again, sucking in a controlled breath as he lines himself up. A few drops of blood slide down his knuckles at the movement, tickling as they run down the side of his hand and drip off his wrist. _Fuck_ this is going to hurt now that Barnes is all torn up, he can only imagine, but that’s what you get. In front of him, Barnes is panting, and—

—he’s still talking.

He barely seems aware of the fact, babbling more than anything else, but he’s talking. _“No,”_ he is saying. “Stop—stop—I can’t—”

“You got nobody to blame but yourself, baby. Hold still.”

Barnes doesn’t. He jerks his hips forward, pathetically, not really putting any strength behind it and easily subdued by Rumlow’s arm across his lower stomach, but still—he does it. “No. I was—I did what you wanted, you should—I can’t—”

Rumlow is no longer listening. Despite the pleading nature of the words, more than anything else Barnes sounds _angry_. Like he really thinks he deserves so much _better_ , like he gets to make any of the rules—maybe that’s why he isn’t listening to him and _isn’t shutting up_.

But that isn’t the reason Rumlow stops paying attention; no, it’s the way Barnes is pushing his metal hand against the mattress now, like he is bracing to push upward. The tension is there all the way up to his shoulder, to where the metal meets flesh. Rumlow, keeping his eyes on that arm, forgets what he’d been doing, and doesn’t move.

That is probably a mistake—he should have just gone ahead and started fucking the guy already. Barnes has pulled himself together enough now to look up over his shoulder at him again: surprised, clearly, that the pain he had been expecting hasn’t emerged. He is gasping, face red, but he still looks so _pissed off,_ doing that same stupid pout he’d been doing right after Rumlow had first come to visit him. The muscles in his back are hard, tense with something barely restrained.

A tiny coil of—not fear but _something_ , of _discomfort_ , nothing more than that—is unfurling in Rumlow’s chest.

Rumlow pushes it down, swallows it, although his throat hurts when he swallows and that part really doesn’t help.

Barnes is glaring at him over his shoulder still, something animalistic in the gaze. His mouth is wet with split and with the blood from before, falling open slightly to show his teeth, and—

That gives Rumlow a sudden inspiration.

Rumlow’s discarded t-shirt is still on the floor near the mattress from where he had left it there yesterday. It’s black, polyester, and it’s enough to do the trick. If. If it works.

His arm is still hooked around Barnes’ waist, and he shifts his hand a little to grip down tight on a patch of skin at the front of Barnes' hip, more of a pinch than a grasp, right next to one hip bone. The surprise of it makes a slight wince appear on Barnes’ face.

“On your back,” Rumlow says to him, loud and commanding.

A long, too-quiet moment where Barnes doesn’t move, just looks at him, upper lip curled slightly. And then—finally—he does it, detaching from Rumlow’s grip and moving sideways to turn onto his back on the mattress. He is still glaring up at him, though, and that metal hand still twitches, and this way it’s actually _easier_ if Barnes wants to—

Rumlow ignores the thought, reaches over and picks up the shirt from the floor. Then he leans down over the man lying in front of him.

Barnes’ eyes might widen a little when he realizes what Rumlow is going to do, his breath hitching and then speeding up, but he doesn’t resist. In fact, he seems to freeze up completely even _before_ Rumlow wraps the black fabric over the lower half of his face, covering Barnes’ mouth and nose, and then ties it tight at the back of his neck, one knot there, two.

Rumlow stops, straightens up, looks down to admire his handiwork.

Barnes looks up at him over the top of the makeshift mask, his eyes going wider, desperate, chest rising and falling almost as quickly as a heartbeat.

“That looks good,” Rumlow says, brushes a few strands of hair out of his face, and smiles, and Barnes looks up at him like a man who has just realized he is about to drown.

It’s exhilarating, looking down at him like this, like the moment before landing a killing blow, and maybe he’s not right about this and it’s not safe yet, but Rumlow forgets the pain in his neck, the constant background ache of his skin, forgets _everything_ except the new terrified look in Barnes’ eyes that is hitting his dick like a fucking lightning strike.

“Mine,” Rumlow says down at him, stroking his neck, his bare collarbone, “all mine,” and Barnes—doesn’t move, doesn’t break eye contact. His breath sounds harsh below the black fabric, and he winces but he doesn’t look away as Rumlow moves down again, spreads Barnes’ legs apart, and pushes his fingers back inside him without bothering to get more oil. Barnes doesn’t complain, still doesn’t even _move_ except for a slight shaking in the muscles of his thighs.

Rumlow _had_ been right about this. Something has already happened, already broken. Rumlow doesn’t know if it’s the instinctive panic from having something pressed so close against his face, or the humiliation of remembering his mask, or both, but the attitude is already _gone_ , that dumb anger out like a fucking light. The discomfort—that is all it was, not fear, not really—has gone from Rumlow's chest. It’s as it should be.

Rumlow doesn’t let him forget his lesson, though, and now he makes sure this part goes on

and

on

He fucks him with his hand, moves it in slowly but firmly until his whole fist is inside, until Barnes is hard and helpless and trying _so hard_ not to move his hips, to stay still for him. He jerks Barnes off slow with his other hand until the black fabric tight across the man’s face is wet with the moisture from his gasping breath and with sweat and snot and drool. Barnes makes no more sounds except for those little gasps: the fucking mouthy bastard really has shut up now. He just lies there pinned like his whole body is restrained—it’s not, not at all, and that makes it even better.

This is everything Rumlow wanted. The blood still leaking from inside him is hot against his fingers. When Barnes comes it’s almost funny how upset he looks.

Then it’s Rumlow’s turn, finally: he keeps him on his back to fuck him, and Barnes stares up at the ceiling, hands still unmoving at his sides. The pain must be terrible, Rumlow rubbing up against all the places he’d hurt him before, and Barnes has trouble keeping quiet near the end when Rumlow gets rougher, but he tries his best, staring up past him, eyes wide and streaming constantly now. Even when he finally starts crying, the sobs are quiet and restrained.

Rumlow leans forward, pushes all of his weight into him now, fingers digging hard into the bruises already coming up on Barnes’ thighs.

“Shhh, baby, shh. Shhh, don’t let anybody hear. Good soldier, good boy. I’ve got you. I’ll take care of you now. I’ve got you and you’re mine forever. Quiet now. Shh.”

Barnes whimpers and doesn’t move. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go; there is no part of him that can hide or will ever be able to hide, and this is the way it’s supposed to be between them—

A few more hard thrusts and a muffled wail beneath him, but no struggle, no fight, nothing.

 

* * *

 

Rumlow undoes the knots at the back of Barnes' neck after he’s finished and has calmed down, peels the fabric away from his face.

Barnes keeps his eyes on him, crying a little still but so _grateful_ that he’s removed it, and so Rumlow helps him up and takes him into the shower. Rumlow cleans them both off, washes off the blood and come and sweat and all the other mess that’s all over him. Even when he pushes Barnes down on his knees and makes him clean off his dick with his mouth, he’s as quiet and docile as a little lamb.

The water in the shower still isn’t warm enough, but he doesn’t mind.

Barnes doesn’t try to get up afterwards: he stays down there on his knees on the cold tile, and kisses him, desperate open-mouthed kisses along Rumlow’s soft cock and over the front his thighs, tiny noises coming from his mouth over the rush of the shower. Rumlow is nice, so he lets him do it.

After a minute, he cups his hand over the back of the other man’s head, asks the question gently. “D’you want me to wash your hair?”

Barnes moves his head against Rumlow’s leg in something that is probably a nod.

He takes the soap bottle and squeezes some out onto his hand, works it through Barnes’ hair as the other man holds still, his forehead resting against Rumlow’s hip as Rumlow carefully rinses it out. He lets him stay leaning against him like that until the last of the soap is gone.

“Mm,” he says. “See? I can be nice. Can’t I?”

Barnes doesn’t move, and Rumlow carefully pushes wet clumps of hair away and out of his face, tilts his head up. Barnes’ eyes are red, whether from the crying earlier or from soap getting into them, he can’t tell.

“ _Be polite_ , soldier,” he says. “I can be nice, can’t I?”

Barnes’ eyes flick over to Rumlow’s other hand, like he’s checking to see if he’s holding anything. Then he nods, face blank. There is water in his eyelashes, little streams of it dripping off his chin.

“That’s right,” Rumlow says.

There’s only one towel, and he lets Barnes use it after him. He helps him out into the other room, too, since he’s still moving gingerly.

“You did so good,” he tells him as helps him sit back down on the mattress. Barnes isn’t looking at him now. “I’m proud of you.”

No answer, but even so, he really _has_ been good, so Rumlow helps him lie down as well, and even pulls the covers up over him. The whole room still smells like sex, and the mattress itself is verging on disgusting, but no matter. Barnes lies on his side, and closes his eyes, and doesn’t move.

The t-shirt is still right there on the floor, within easy reach. Rumlow brushes it with his fingers, considering it, but instead he just leans down over where Barnes is lying instead. He kisses the surprisingly soft patch of skin just under the man's jaw: it’s damp, warm, prickly with stubble, his strong pulse beating just underneath. Barnes actually makes a little disappointed noise when Rumlow stops and pulls away a little, and then screws up his face like he hates himself for it.

Rumlow chuckles. Kind of nice that he’s still got a little bit of fight, because it’s all so adorably fucking useless.

“Need a cigarette,” he tells Barnes cheerfully, and ruffles his wet hair. It smells like soap again.

This really has been a lot of fun, he thinks as he stands up and goes back to his own bag. Honestly, after they’ve been having such a good time together, it’s going to be hard to leave.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short list of my other anon stuff here on [tumblr](https://katjatier.tumblr.com/post/175453329324/my-anon-trash-in-one-place).


End file.
